Some time later I received a letter from Messedaglia telling me that he was leaving for Khartum to fetch his wife. No sooner had he reached that place than he got into some difficulty with the authorities and was discharged, and his place as Governor-General of Darfur was taken by Ali Bey Sherif, formerly Governor-General of Kordofan.
It was about the close of 1879 or early in 1880 that I received a letter from General Gordon, written in French some two months previously from near Debra Tabor, in Abyssinia. Although this letter was destroyed many years ago, I can remember almost the exact words, which were as follows:—
Dear Slatin,—Having finished my mission to King John, I wanted to return the same way that I came; but when near Gallabat I was overtaken by some of Ras Adal's people, who forced me to go back, and I am to be taken under escort to Kassala and thence to Massawa. I have burnt all the compromising documents. King John will be disappointed when he finds he is not master of his own house.
Your friend,
C. Gordon.
CHAPTER III.
THE GOVERNMENT OF DARFUR.
Government Administration in Dara—My Difficulties with the Gellabas—Manners and Customs of the Arabs—Arrival at Shakka—Madibbo Bey Sheikh of the Rizighat—My Visit to Khartum—Arrival of Gessi in Khartum—I return West with Bishop Comboni and Father Ohrwalder—Am appointed Governor-General of Darfur—Hostilities between the Maheria and Bedeyat Arabs—I proceed to the Bedeyat Country—Strange Manners and Customs of the Bedeyat—Saleh Donkusa and the Heglik Tree—The Ceremony of Taking the Oath of Fidelity—Return to El Fasher—Troubles at Shakka and Death of Emiliani—I leave for Dara.
I now busied myself with the administrative affairs of the province of Dara. The returns which I had called for, showing the names and numbers of villages, their population, etc., were duly submitted to me, and I now resolved to travel over the entire district and personally inquire into the state of affairs.